Maybe it's the weather, but my thoughts have turned to heat. Mr. Know-It-All has this to say:
Your furnace ought to both heat the water for the radiators, which will then carry a freeze protection antifreeze solution in a closed loop, and the water for your hot water faucets, both loops being closed so the water from one does not mix with the water from the other. For the hot faucet water side, you can either go with an on-demand unit or you can get a jacketed hot water holding tank connected to the furnace. I think plumbers tend to recommend the latter because of the volume of hot water that Americans like to use when they bathe. On-demand systems come in various volume sizes. Either way, the hot faucet water uses the oil fired burner to heat the water, so the furnace never sits idle even during the summer season. There are also furnaces that can burn alternative fuels--even our common oil-fired furnaces can use a certain proportion of vegetable oil. Wood furnaces would be nice if we had any wood on the island. With the price of heating oil so volatile, it would be nice to have an alternative. One thing here in the winter that is a cause of concern to those of us who have stopped taking serotonin reuptake inhibitors is that the electricity goes out fairly often and sometimes for quite a while, as when we have nasty blizzards that knock over the power lines. Without electricity, even oil fired furnaces go out, and sometimes, depending on the cycle they happen to be on when the electricity goes off, they don't come back on automatically, but the re-set switch has to re-set. This is all very confusing. But the point is that a built in propane or gasoline-fired powered generator is not a bad idea up here where one is dependent on a sole power source from an aging power company with above ground power lines subject to breakage.
On the web, the brands I found were Takagi and Monitor. But as I have no idea what size I need, I'm not much forrader.
Your furnace ought to both heat the water for the radiators, which will then carry a freeze protection antifreeze solution in a closed loop, and the water for your hot water faucets, both loops being closed so the water from one does not mix with the water from the other. For the hot faucet water side, you can either go with an on-demand unit or you can get a jacketed hot water holding tank connected to the furnace. I think plumbers tend to recommend the latter because of the volume of hot water that Americans like to use when they bathe. On-demand systems come in various volume sizes. Either way, the hot faucet water uses the oil fired burner to heat the water, so the furnace never sits idle even during the summer season. There are also furnaces that can burn alternative fuels--even our common oil-fired furnaces can use a certain proportion of vegetable oil. Wood furnaces would be nice if we had any wood on the island. With the price of heating oil so volatile, it would be nice to have an alternative. One thing here in the winter that is a cause of concern to those of us who have stopped taking serotonin reuptake inhibitors is that the electricity goes out fairly often and sometimes for quite a while, as when we have nasty blizzards that knock over the power lines. Without electricity, even oil fired furnaces go out, and sometimes, depending on the cycle they happen to be on when the electricity goes off, they don't come back on automatically, but the re-set switch has to re-set. This is all very confusing. But the point is that a built in propane or gasoline-fired powered generator is not a bad idea up here where one is dependent on a sole power source from an aging power company with above ground power lines subject to breakage.
On the web, the brands I found were Takagi and Monitor. But as I have no idea what size I need, I'm not much forrader.
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